


The Gaang Gets Trapped

by doompatrol7



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Comedy, Crack, Crack Crossover, Crossover, Gen, Stupidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:08:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26166883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doompatrol7/pseuds/doompatrol7
Summary: The Gaang breaks into a house to steal a priceless artifact.(An adaptation of theIt's Always Sunny in Philadelphiaepisode 'The Gang Gets Trapped' with the Gaang instead of the Gang.)
Relationships: Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	The Gaang Gets Trapped

**Author's Note:**

> The other day at 3 AM, I was thinking: the cast of It's Always Sunny is called the Gang and the cast of Avatar is called the Gaang. Has anyone ever replaced the Gang with the Gaang before? Maybe, but I've never seen it. The next day, I entered a feverish state and wrote most of this in one sitting, edited it a little, and now I have one of the stupidest things I've ever written.
> 
> Some parts are more or less verbatim from the original episode written by Luvh Rakhe, others are changed or entirely new so that the Gaang isn't so OOC as to be unrecognizable.
> 
> Also, you may be wondering. How can the Gaang have something as technologically advanced as walkie talkies? Idk, it's a crack fic, Sokka and the Air Temple inventor guy made them I guess.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” Zuko said under his breath. “This is such a stupid situation!”  
  
“We need to get out of here, Zuko,” Katara said, grabbing his shoulder. “We need a plan!”  
  
He winced. “The plan for now is for you to _lower your voice!_ ”  
  
“You know this is as low as I can go-“  
  
Zuko slapped a hand over her mouth, earning a blistering glare. Peering through the slits of the closet door they were trapped behind, he watched as the woman moved about her room, packing things into a suitcase on her bed.  
  
“I say we attack and choke her out with her own belt.”  
  
“ _Zuko!_ ” Katara whispered, ripping his hand away. “You are escalating! And of course you are, because it’s always like that with us!”  
  
“We do not escalate-“  
  
“Yes, we do! It’s preposterous, really. Someone in our group comes up with some strange plan or idea, and soon enough _everybody_ is on board, _everybody_ is going full speed, _nobody_ stops to think while you all put out one idiotic idea after another, and then, suddenly, we find ourselves stuck in some lady’s _closet_ , having broken into a home while the homeowner is, well, _home!_ We can’t do this anymore! We need to examine ourselves!”  
  
“OK, OK, I get it!” Zuko said with a sigh. “I’m on board with that, but right now I’m trying to come up with a solution. So, if you _don’t_ want to choke her out, think of a better idea!”  
  
“I’m just saying, this was a totally avoidable situation, _Zuko_.”  
  
He facepalmed. “I know I’m not innocent in this, OK? I know I shouldn’t have stood on that table, I know I shouldn’t have given that speech about how this would be the perfect revenge against my father and that I was the best one to lead us into the house because I understand the Fire Nation more than anybody, _I know that_. I regret that now.”  
  
“Well, _I_ regret being dragged into this mess.”  
  
“What do you mean, you were dragged? You nosed your way into this like you nose your way into everything!”  
  
Katara scoffed. “I did not ‘nose’ my way-“  
  
“She’s leaving, she’s leaving!” Zuko interrupted, watching as the lady left the room. “Alright, I’m gonna call Sokka and Aang.”  
  
He pulled out his walkie talkie. “Guys, do you copy? How is everything out there?”  
  
Sokka’s voice came through the speaker. _“We copy, Extraction Team! Everything is fine out here. What is your status? Have you recovered the artifact?”_  
  
“No,” Zuko began, “we are _off_ the artifact plan. We are not _doing_ the artifact plan anymore, it is a _stupid_ plan!”  
  
_“Negative,”_ Sokka said. _“It is an awesome plan; this family should not have the artifact! It belongs to your family, Zuko! At least, that’s what you said during your speech.”_  
  
_“You’re its rightful owner, Zuko! You emphasized that multiple times,”_ Aang chimed in.  
  
“Doesn’t matter anymore. This plan is dumb, as, I now realize, are many of our plans.”  
  
_“What about your bragging that you would be in and out as fast as a dragon’s breath? What about the conviction in your voice when you said that claiming this artifact as your own would be the perfect symbolic revenge against your father?”_ Sokka asked.  
  
_“You stood on a table. It was really persuasive!”_ Aang said.  
  
“…It was a pretty good speech, but I regret it now.”  
  
Katara made a noise, shifting from one leg to another awkwardly. “…I know this isn’t the best time to say this, but I have to pee.”  
  
“What? No!” Zuko said as he failed to stop Katara from leaving the closet. “Katara, what are you doing? She could come back in at any moment!”  
  
She sighed as she stopped, still twitching in discomfort. “Sorry, but I don’t know how long I can hold it in!”  
  
_“You know, I bet I could’ve made a better speech,”_ Sokka said.  
  
_“I’m more of a fan of Katara’s heartfelt speeches,”_ Aang replied.  
  
“Guys! Can we talk about this later?” Zuko said before turning to the bed. “Toph, come out, the plan’s off.”  
  
From under the bed crawled Toph, a worryingly wide smile on her face. “I’m going nowhere, Sparky. Not until I get that vase!” she said as she hopped to her feet.  
  
“Forget about the vase, Toph. We’re done with this ridiculous plan,” Katara said.  
  
_“Toph’s right,”_ Aang said, _“We need to think about the vase and what’s best for it. We are getting that vase! For Zuko!”_  
  
_“Yes!”_ Sokka agreed. _“We are men (and women) of honor, we will not back down.”_  
  
“What? Sokka, you didn’t care about the vase a mere two hours ago,” Katara pointed out.  
  
_“So, what? I changed.”_  
  
“We should not be committing crimes based on beliefs that are two hours old,” Zuko said.  
  
_“Why aren’t you agreeing with me? It’s an injustice that it was stolen from your family!”_  
  
“Actually, my father gifted it to the Fire Nation official who lives here. In fact, it will only ever have been stolen if _we_ take it.” He winced at Aang and Sokka’s loud protests. “ _Anyway_ , I’m leaving. I quit.”  
  
“Me too,” Katara said.  
  
“Don’t worry, boys, I’m still in! _Loot, loot, loot!_ ” Toph cheered into her own walkie talkie.  
  
Sokka laughed. _“See? That’s why Toph is on the Extraction Team. She’s got the attitude, Zuko has the knowledge, and Katara… why are you in there again, Katara?”_  
  
“I was dragged into this.”  
  
“No, you weren’t-“  
  
Aang gasped. _“Extraction Team! There is someone approaching the house. I repeat, someone is approaching the house!”_  
  
Sure enough, a voice sounded from the entrance three stories down. “Honey, I’m home!”  
  
“Oh, I’m up here, darling!” the woman said, shockingly close to their location.  
  
“Shit, shit, shit!” Zuko said softly as he hurried back to the closet with Katara.  
  
“This is _amazing!_ ” Toph chuckled as she followed them in.  
  
The three of them were crammed inside, elbow to elbow. Nudging the others backwards, Zuko watched as the lady came in, picked up her suitcase, and hid it under the bed.  
  
Toph gasped. “I just saw her put the vase in the suitcase!”  
  
“No, you didn’t. You can’t see.”  
  
“Oh, I have to pee so bad…” Katara whined.  
  
The woman cut off any annoyed reply Zuko was hoping to make. “What are you doing home? Shouldn’t you be at work?”  
  
“Just forgot some things, is all," the man said. "But then I noticed the front door was ajar.”  
  
The three of them fought the urge to groan. They had gone in through the back door, but, apparently, this lady kept her own front door open.  
  
“Oh, it must’ve been me. I’ve been in and out a lot today, you know?”  
  
Toph quirked an eyebrow at that.  
  
“Ha, I know how you get! Well, I got what I came for, so I better get back to it. Love you, honey.”  
  
“Love you too!”  
  
They listened as the man stomped down the stairs and left as quickly as he came.  
  
“…That was weird,” Toph said.  
  
“Very weird,” Zuko agreed.  
  
“What was so weird about it?” Katara asked. “Is love that foreign to the both of you?”  
  
They shrugged in unison.  
  
“She lied to him,” Toph explained.  
  
“And hid the suitcase,” Zuko added.  
  
“Oh, right,” Katara said, brows furrowed.  
  
_“Give me some fire flakes,”_ Aang’s voice reverberated from the walkie talkie. Apparently, Sokka hadn’t ended their connection.  
  
_“No, Aang, these are my fire flakes. You’re not getting any,”_ Sokka said, audibly crunching on some.  
  
_“Fine! What’s the status Extraction Team?”_  
  
“We’re all in the closet and the lady lied to the man,” Toph answered.  
  
_“…What?”_  
  
The door to the bedroom slammed shut.  
  
“Is she gone?” Zuko asked.  
  
Toph wiggled her toes on the floor. “She’s far enough.” Suddenly, she left the closet with a cackle. “Let’s go, bitches!”  
  
“Toph, no!” Zuko said. “We are in a very dangerous situation here! These guys are Fire Nation officials, and, if they see us, then everyone will know where we are! That’s if they don’t manage to capture us themselves!”  
  
_“Fire Nation officials, huh? Sokka, give me some fire flakes.”_  
  
_“No, you don’t get my fire flakes, Aang!”_  
  
Zuko ignored their bickering as he began to ramble. “Agni only knows what my father would do to us if we’re captured. These Fire Nation higher ups are ruthless, they’ll probably be happy we invaded their home! They want to get their hands on us so they can yell at us, then burn us, then banish us-“  
  
“Zuko, calm down!” Katara said, gripping his shoulders.  
  
He took a breath. “Toph, we’ll be lucky if the worst they do to us is kill us.”  
  
“Not to worry, Sparky!” Toph said as she took out the lady’s suitcase and, to their chagrin, began to open it. “If some Fire Nation asshole comes at us, I’ll lash ‘em in the face with the whip!” She held up said whip, waving it around to show it off.  
  
“No, Toph, you can’t. Use your earthbending, at least! These guys are master firebenders.”  
  
_“Yeah, Toph. For once, Zuko is right,”_ Sokka said. _“I heard these Fire Nations guys like to lock thieves in metal cages and then heat them with their bending until the skin melts off. Or they force you to walk on a floor of hot coals until your feet catch on fire. Every time you hear about someone with a crazy torture basement, it’s always Fire Nation!”_  
  
_“There’s no way that’s true,”_ Aang said. _“Hey, Extraction Team, go down to the basement to check if Sokka’s wrong.”_  
  
_“There’s no way I’m wrong. They’ve got dungeons, man.”_  
  
_“Uh huh, sure. Dungeons and torture basements and- Give me some fire flakes.”_  
  
_“You’re not getting fire flakes, OK?!”_  
  
_“Come on!”_  
  
_“Leave me alone with the fire flakes! If you wanted fire flakes, you could’ve gotten a bag at the fire flakes store!”_  
  
_“Sokka-“_  
  
Zuko, who had dissociated while listening to the argument, started back to life. “I-I can’t listen to this shit anymore. I simply can’t,” he said, turning off the walkie talkie.  
  
“Oh ho!” Toph said as she pulled something out of the suitcase. Sniffing it, her face crinkled in disgust. “Ugh. Perfume bottle.”  
  
“What are you doing, Toph?!” Katara said in alarm.  
  
“Looking for the vase.”  
  
“The vase is not in there! You saw nothing!”  
  
“Woah, wait,” Zuko said, reaching into the suitcase and pulling out a pile of tickets. “Look at all these tickets to see the Ember Island Players. Who the hell wants to see them, what, fifteen-sixteen times? No one. No one does because they suck.”  
  
“I already got a theory,” Toph said. “She’s banging one of the actors.”  
  
Zuko and Katara both sputtered, faces flushing red.  
  
“T-Toph,” Zuko said, clearing his throat, “if she was having an affair with some theater actor, why would she need to buy these many tickets?!”  
  
“Oh, you’re right. Maybe she wants to kill one of them?”  
  
“The same logic still applies! Where are these theories coming from? They’re ridiculous!”  
  
She shrugged.  
  
He felt like he was going to explode. “Whatever! We have got to get out of here! Now!”  
  
As he reached for Toph, she brandished the whip. “Back off, bitch!” He obediently did as he was told, holding his hands up over his head. “I’m not leaving until I get that vase!”  
  
She whipped the ground in front of them, forcing them backwards.  
  
“Stop this right now!” Katara commanded.  
  
It fell on deaf ears. As Toph walked to the room’s door, she kept whipping the ground around them to keep them at bay. Once she reached the exit, she saluted. “See ya, bitches!” And, with that, she ran off down the hallway.  
  
“She’s going to get herself hurt…” Katara said with concern.  
  
“We never should’ve let her have that whip, and we never should’ve taught her the word ‘bitch’. Whose idea was that, anyway?”  
  
“Whip or bitch?”  
  
“Whip. Bitch was Sokka’s fault, of course.”  
  
Katara rolled her eyes. “Who knows. Come on, let’s get out of here.”  
  
The two of them left the bedroom and ran for the stairs, which they descended to reach the next floor. As Zuko turned into the second floor hallway, he passed a table displaying some decorative pottery (none of which, he noted, was the vase). The sounds of Katara bumping into the table, jostling all the pottery with a cry, stopped him in his tracks.  
  
He hurriedly placed down a hand to steady the table and stop it from making any more noise before turning to Katara, pointing a finger in her face.  
  
The words left his mouth before he even had a chance to think about them. “Katara, you gangly, uncoordinated bitch! I am not getting killed by my father over your lack of grace!”  
  
_“Excuse me?!”_ she exclaimed just a little too loud for Zuko’s liking, fixing him with an absolute death stare. “ _What_ did you just call me?!”  
  
“U-Uh,” Zuko stuttered out, regretting his choice of words immediately. “I said… you have a… dandy, well-coordinated… ditch?”  
  
“That doesn’t even make any sense!” she said, throwing up her hands, before storming away, muttering, “I have _plenty_ of grace I’ll have you know!” as she did.  
  
However, as soon as she reached the stairs to the ground floor, her eyes widened. She began to speed walk back.  
  
“I heard her. She’s coming!” she said as she passed Zuko.  
  
They both bolted down the hall and entered the first room they came across. Zuko pressed an ear to the door, listening for the woman's footsteps. Once he knew she had gone elsewhere, he turned and realized with horror that they were in the bathroom.  
  
Katara stared at him, eyes pleading.  
  
“Katara, no-“  
  
“You just called me a ‘gangly, uncoordinated bitch’, Zuko.”  
  
“If my time hanging out with my sister and her friends taught me anything, it’s that bitch is a term of endearment.”  
  
“Oh, the endearment in your voice was palpable!”  
  
“Look, I get it and I’m sorry. This whole thing is stressful to me and I’m lashing out. But, couldn’t you just… you know, bend the piss-“  
  
“You’re disgusting!”  
  
He slapped his forehead. “Ugh, fine! But when this lady realizes there’s foreign piss in her home, don’t blame me if we get caught.”  
  
She nodded and moved to the toilet at an inhuman speed.  
  
“Agni, at least give me a chance to look away!” he said as he did just that. “Whatever, I’m going to call Aang and Sokka so they can create a diversion for us to escape.”  
  
Katara didn’t respond, and he didn’t want to turn around to see what she was doing. Shaking his head with a grimace, he left the bathroom before he was forced to listen to what she was about to do. Treading carefully back up the stairs to the bedroom, he turned on the walkie talkie as he entered the accursed closet once more.  
  
“Aang? Sokka? You there?”  
  
_“I’m telling you, Aang, if something goes wrong it’d be an amazing idea.”_  
  
_“So, if the Fire Lord takes over the world, we open a leather shop in the Fire Nation?”_  
  
_“Exactly! We already know we can fit in with the right disguises, and people in the Fire Nation love leather. What, have I never mentioned this to you before? I definitely have.”_  
  
_“No, you definitely haven’t, but I don’t want any part of this plan. One, I refuse to wear leather because you need to kill animals to make it. Two, I’m the one facing the Fire Lord and I won’t be alive if he takes over the world!”_  
  
_“But, the leather-“_  
  
“Guys, I asked you a question!”  
  
They were silent for a moment.  
  
_“Sokka, why is your thumb on the button?”_  
  
_“I don’t know. Reflex, I guess.”_  
  
_“Sorry, Zuko. We were busy having a leather conversation. What’s the status on the vase?”_  
  
He scoffed. “OK, first off, a leather shop? In the Fire Nation? Are you serious? There are far too many leather shops in the Fire Nation as it is, you would be out of business in a week’s time!”  
  
_“Well, do you have any better ideas?”_  
  
_“Yeah, Zuko. Come up with a better idea- Give me some fire flakes!”_  
  
_“You’re not getting the fire flakes; the fire flakes are off the table!”_  
  
_“I want some fire flakes!”_  
  
_“Zuko, you were there! He wants fire flakes and I asked him at the store if he wanted any and he said no! If you wanted these damn fire flakes, you should’ve gotten them at the damn fire flakes shop!”_  
  
“Calm the fuck down!” Zuko said, fighting the urge to scream. The line went silent. “Alright, alright… We need you guys to make a distraction so the rest of us can sneak out of the house.”  
  
Aang sighed. _“Yeah, fine. It’s fine, I’m just hungry. We’ll do the distraction- oh, I just thought of something!”_  
  
“What?”  
  
_“What if this vase was cursed by spirits? That’s why things aren’t going well! If this vase has a curse on it, do not touch it. I repeat, do not touch this vase. Use a bag or something to pick it up.”_  
  
“The vase is not cursed. It was sculpted during Sozin’s reign; it was a time of science.” The closet doors opened unexpectedly, and he jumped as Katara burst in, causing him to release the button on the walkie talkie. “Katara! You scared the shit out of me!”  
  
She waved a dismissive hand. “Sorry, I just feel so much lighter now! But never mind that, what’s going on with Sokka and Aang?”  
  
“I can’t get them to stay focused. They keep escalating the conversation to fire flakes and spirit curses and opening leather shops in the Fire Nation.”  
  
Katara huffed. “A leather shop? In the Fire Nation? They would be out of business in a week’s time!”  
  
“That is _exactly_ what I said.”  
  
She exhaled a breath. “We need to split them up. Pairing them together is one of a multitude of things that make no sense about this plan.”  
  
“Good idea, but how do you propose we do that?”  
  
“Oh, I know both of them inside and out. Hand me the walkie talkie.” He did as she requested, and she pressed the button. “Hey, Aang, it’s Katara.”  
  
_“Oh, hey Katara! What’s up?”_  
  
“I just have a question. How come Sokka’s the only one who gets to push the button on the walkie?”  
  
A long pause. _“Uhhh… let me get back to you on that.”_  
  
With a smug smile, she released the button, the last sound they heard being Sokka slowly munching on fire flakes. “That should do it.”  
  
Zuko didn’t know whether to be terrified or impressed.  
  
The walkie talkie suddenly crackled with noise. _“Hey, guys!”_ Toph’s voice said through it. _“Based on what I can feel, I think I’m in some little girl’s room!”_  
  
“Toph, get back here,” Zuko said. “Sokka and Aang are gonna do a diversion so we can leave.”  
  
_“No way, the little bitch has got a suitcase. I’ll bet the vase is in it!”_  
  
“No, _no_ , I doubt that,” Katara said in a panic.  
  
“Yeah, at this point I don’t even think this is the family my father gifted the vase in the first place.”  
  
_“I’m going through the suitcase,”_ Toph said, blatantly ignoring them. _“Frilly little dress, a doll, and- Oh, here’s a stuffed platypus bear! Maybe the vase is inside? I’ll bet the wife put it in there to steal it from the husband!”_  
  
“Toph, I _know_ you know how ridiculous you sound.”  
  
_“I’m gonna gut this thing.”_  
  
“No!” Zuko said.  
  
“No, no, no, no, _no_ ,” Katara echoed him.  
  
Toph didn’t respond, the only sound the tearing of fabric as she ripped the toy to pieces.  
  
Katara put her head in her hands.  
  
The sounds only intensified as Toph apparently decided to start destroying other things in the room.  
  
“That is a ridiculous amount of noise…” Katara muttered, voice full of dread.  
  
“ _How_ have we not been caught yet?” Zuko asked in bewilderment.  
  
All of a sudden, the closet door opened, and, on instinct, the two of them raised their hands up to bend for their lives.  
  
However, the figure in front of them wasn’t anyone who lived in the house. It was Aang.  
  
“Hey! What’s up guys?” he said as he invited himself in.  
  
They could do little but stare in a mixture of astonishment and fury.  
  
“…What?”  
  
“Aang!” Katara whispered intensely. “What are you doing here?!”  
  
“Oh, I snuck in. Sokka was being a jerk about the walkie talkie and wouldn’t let me press the button so…”  
  
“So, he can just sneak in, but we can’t just sneak out?!” Zuko asked, tightly gripping his hair in despair.  
  
“It wasn’t easy! There are, like, a million closets in this place, and I didn’t know which one you were in so I checked a bunch of them.”  
  
“Whatever. Maybe now that you two are split up, we can get Sokka to create a diversion-”  
  
Zuko was interrupted by the voice of a young girl.  
  
“Hi, mama! I’m home!”  
  
All three of their eyes widened.  
  
Katara brought a hand to her mouth. “Tui and La, her child is here?”  
  
Zuko pressed the button on the walkie talkie with more force than usual. “Sokka, what the hell? A kid just walked in. A little heads up?!”  
  
_“Could you hold on one second, Zuko? OK, I’d like two bags of fire flakes-“_  
  
“Sokka, now is not the time to run off and get fire flakes, we need your help!”  
  
_“I didn’t just run off, dude, I’m coming back. Appa can fly pretty fast, you know?”_  
  
“But we need you to come back now! We need you to create a diversion! We have _got_ to get out of this house!”  
  
_“What happened to Aang’s diversion?”_  
  
Zuko glanced at Aang, who flashed him a nervous smile. “Aang doesn’t know what a diversion is, apparently. He just ran directly into the house.”  
  
_“Fine, I’ll be right back.”_  
  
“Hey, Sokka, was that second bag of fire flakes for me?” Aang asked.  
  
_“You know it, buddy!”_  
  
“Guys, can you please, please, stop talking about the damn fire flakes for a single, solitary second? _Please!_ ” Zuko pleaded.  
  
_“Sure thing, Zuko. That fight is long behind us anyway! And you’ll be happy to know I already have an idea for my diversion. I’ll put on my beard, knock on the door, and introduce myself as ‘Wang Fire, door to door psychiatrist’! You guys run out the back as I give this woman life advice.”_  
  
Katara pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s… stupid, but I guess it will work.”  
  
_“Oh, and maybe I can do a voice!”_  
  
“No,” she said, “do _not_ do a voice!”  
  
_“Too late, I’m doing a voice. I need to stretch my acting muscles, Katara.”_  
  
“Sokka,” Zuko said, putting on the most threatening voice he could muster, “if you do a voice I will kill you.”  
  
_“Sorry, my mind is made up. See ya!”_ He turned off his connection.  
  
“Looks like we’re on our own,” Zuko said with a pained moan. “Let’s just make our move. Aang, how’d you sneak in here?”  
  
“The front door.”  
  
“F-Front door?!” Katara said, mouth agape. “You just- walked right in the front door?”  
  
“Well, I didn’t walk. I ran pretty fast if I do say so myself. But, yeah, front door.”  
  
“Mhm…” Katara hummed shakily, clearly regretting her life choices.  
  
“I’m beginning to think we should just… walk out the front door,” Zuko suggested in desperation.  
  
“…This family has _zero_ awareness of their surroundings,” Katara said under her breath with a nod.  
  
“Let’s go,” Zuko said. “Let’s just… go.”  
  
The second they left the closet, the woman’s voice came from down the hall. Zuko held out a hand to signal that they stop.  
  
“Tell me, baby. Do you like Ember Island?”  
  
“Yeah…?” the daughter replied.  
  
“Well, we’re going very soon! Surprise! I packed your suitcase!”  
  
“Did you pack Naga?”  
  
“Well, no, I packed Pabu.”  
  
“I don’t want Pabu, I want Naga!”  
  
“Go grab your Naga and hurry up because we gotta go soon!”  
  
Zuko’s blood ran cold. “Toph, Toph, Toph!” he hastily said into the walkie talkie. “Little girl coming your way!”  
  
An audible whip crack sounded out of the speaker. _“I’m gonna whip this little bitch in the face if she makes a peep!”_  
  
The line went dead, and the three could only stare at each other, completely mortified.  
  
“Well,” Zuko said, biting his lower lip, “let’s just hope for the best?”  
  
“She threatened to whip a _child!_ ” Katara cried. “We need to do something!”  
  
“I trust Toph to not fuck this up,” Zuko said, not knowing how much he believed his own words.  
  
“Oh, you do, huh?”  
  
“No matter, going downstairs and through the front door was the plan and we’re sticking with it. We’re not exposing ourselves under any circumstances.”  
  
Katara groaned. “Fine. I’ll trust Toph. What about you, Aang?”  
  
He shrugged. “If that’s what you guys want, then I’ll follow you.”  
  
“OK, then, it’s agreed.” Zuko nodded. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”  
  
…  
  
Toph snickered as she turned off the walkie talkie. This whole plan only got more exciting by the minute!  
  
She needed to act quick. With a couple sweeps of her foot, she kicked the broken remains of the girl’s things under the bed so they wouldn’t be noticed. Feeling around the room for a spot to hide, whip ready to strike at a moment's notice, she noticed a nearby closet that was filled to the brim with plush toys.  
  
Naturally, she opened the closet and dove in, making herself comfortable between two toys that were so soft she couldn’t even tell what they were.  
  
It wasn’t long until the little girl entered and immediately made her way to the closet. Toph went still as the girl intently searched her massive collection. She briefly felt the girl’s gaze on her, but it moved on once it somehow didn’t process that a living, breathing human being was hiding amongst the stuffed creatures.  
  
“Naga!”  
  
She grabbed one and then ran off.  
  
Toph was almost disappointed she didn’t get an excuse to whip someone in the face.  
  
…  
  
“We are terrible!” Katara lectured as they made their way down the stairs to the entrance. “No one here is planning to torture anyone, this is just a nice woman planning a surprise vacation for her child!”  
  
“I knew Sokka was wrong!” Aang said.  
  
Just as the front door came into view, a sudden loud knock put them on high alert.  
  
“Go, go!” Katara whispered to Zuko and Aang as they backed up and entered a closet down the hall. She peeked out to the sight of the woman answering the door.  
  
“Li! What took you so long?” she said.  
  
“Mom?” the daughter said. “Why is Li here?”  
  
All at once, the three of them sighed in relief. Toph had it under control after all. Though, they had no clue what exactly she did to escape that predicament.  
  
“Well, uh, he’s coming to Ember Island with us instead of daddy!”  
  
Li strode in. “How’d you like it to go to the beach every day?”  
  
“We’re going to Ember Island? Without daddy?!” the girl said, obvious distress in her voice.  
  
“I’m your new daddy!”  
  
_“Uh oh,”_ Katara said with a cringe, finally closing the door. “Tui and La, did you hear that?”  
  
_“Yes!”_ Zuko said, more invested than was reasonable.  
  
“What does that mean, ‘new daddy’?” Aang asked, all wide-eyed and innocent.  
  
Katara and Zuko glanced at each other.  
  
“She’s cheating on her husband and running away with their kid to Ember Island,” Zuko bluntly explained, ignoring Katara’s glare.  
  
“Oh...” Aang said, crestfallen.  
  
They all jumped as the front door slammed open.  
  
“ _Li!_ I followed you, you son of a bitch!” another male voice yelled.  
  
“Welp, there’s the dad,” Zuko said with a sigh.  
  
“How could you do this to me?” the dad said over the cries of his daughter. “Do you still love me?!”  
  
The cringing between them only intensified.  
  
“Not good when the kids get involved,” Zuko muttered, shaking his head.  
  
“Very sad,” Aang agreed with a nod.  
  
The yelling match between the adults continued. As the expletives they spouted became more and more creative, and as the young girl’s crying amplified, the three of them could only stand there in silent horror.  
  
“…We need to leave,” Zuko said softly.  
  
Katara nodded, mouth a thin line. “Agreed.”  
  
“Y-Yeah, I want out of here bad. Let’s just go through the front door.”  
  
“Are you kidding?” Zuko said. “Things are reaching a head out there, if it’s anything like my family then it’s going to be a massacre!”  
  
Right then, Li screamed out, _“Everybody shut up!”_  
  
They were all breathless as they waited in anticipation for what was going to happen next.  
  
“Now, let’s all just calm down and discuss things. I don’t care if it takes all night.”  
  
They all groaned in unison.  
  
“All night?” Aang said. “I can’t do all night!”  
  
“Screw it,” Zuko said. “We’re doing what Aang suggested. Let’s just walk right out.”  
  
“They’ve got a lot on their plate, they won’t notice!” Aang reasoned with a nod.  
  
“...Fine,” Katara said reluctantly, “let’s do it."  
  
The three left the closet and walked down the hall as casually as possibly.  
  
“I’m trying to make this work,” the dad said, voice growing clearer with each step. “If you wanna go, then go. But there’s no way you’re taking my daughter-“  
  
Zuko, Aang, and Katara paused right in front of the door as he went silent, and slowly turned around.  
  
The family was staring right at them from the adjacent room.  
  
For a few seconds, neither party said a word. The first thing Zuko noticed was that none of them looked like high ranking Fire Nation officials; they were too young and wore the plain clothes of middle class Fire Nation citizens. The second thing he noticed was the familiar vase sitting at the edge of the room. How did these people obtain this house? How did they obtain the vase? He was too over everything to care.  
  
“…Hello,” Aang said, forcing a smile.  
  
“Hey,” Zuko followed up with a wave.  
  
There was yet another knock on the front door, and Sokka burst in, wearing his fake beard.  
  
“Hello, I’m Wang Fire-“  
  
_“Sokka,”_ Katara hissed through her teeth, gesturing to the petrified family.  
  
His eyes widened as they shifted back and forth between both groups. That shut him up.  
  
“Toph!” Zuko yelled down the hall. “We’re out of here!”  
  
She ran down so fast it was as if she materialized right next to them. “Sup, guys?” she said to everyone, apparently oblivious to the tense standoff in front of her. Having felt the room with her feet, she tilted her head and pointed at the vase. _“The vase!”_  
  
With remarkable precision, she hit it with a crack of her whip, shattering it to pieces.  
  
“Well, shit.”  
  
The silent terror on the family's faces only intensified.  
  
“Okay,” Zuko said, “we’re just gonna head out, so...”  
  
Sokka opened the door, and they started filing out.  
  
“Maybe if I angled the whip a little differently…” Toph said to herself.  
  
“No,” Sokka said, “you could never pick up a _vase_ with a _whip_.”  
  
The last one out, Katara, bowed to the shell-shocked homeowners. “T-Thank you.”  
  
She closed the door as fast as possible and turned to the others.  
  
“Agree to never speak of this again?” she asked.  
  
Aang nodded with great enthusiasm. “Yup!”  
  
Zuko sighed in relief. “Definitely.”  
  
Sokka pulled on his fake mustache. “Sure.”  
  
“I dunno, it was kinda fun,” Toph said with a grin. Before anyone could protest, she whipped the ground in front of them and ran off. “Last one to Appa is a little bitch!”  
  
“Agni above…” Zuko said, rubbing his aching head. “Seriously, _whose_ idea was it to give her the whip?!”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this monstrosity.


End file.
